There’s a general consensus and has been since the beginning of this country that people need to know what is going on in their community for a community to run properly -- with strength and vigor.
Our country was based on the idea of separation of powers, a system of checks and balances; we have the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of government preventing any one branch from becoming too powerful. We also have another separation between our local, state, and federal structures of government, decentralizing decision making, creating different roles for each level to fill and preventing the federal system from becoming too powerful. Giving citizens access at the local level to the issues that directly affect them and their communities.
We call these the three branches of government. But who watches over these three? Who provides the ultimate check on the government. Historically, and with great reverence it is the press – the Fourth Estate, the Fourth Branch of Government. Newspapers. And later the rest of the media in radio, television, and now the internet with social media and all the new iterations of distribution.
But newspapers are holy. They function, or should function, under a strict code of ethics that allows the public, the local community to trust and KNOW they can trust the news.
We also have the have the First Amendment to the Constitution in our Bill of Rights that protects our free exercise of the press, specifically allowing for the people to petition the government for a redress of grievances – to know what our government is doing is our number one, first basic right.
It’s our JOB to cover local government. And we take that very seriously. We also think our local government does way more good than it does bad and we work really hard to tell those good stories. All the damn time. We want people to know the good news and we tell it, from the mountain top every week.
But sometimes the news is not good. Sometimes our local government does some wonky things and people need to know about that too. They have every right to know what their elected officials and those officials’ employees are doing. And it is our responsibility to tell them. If we didn’t tell them we wouldn’t be doing our job, but worse, we could and would be accused of colluding with these wonky if not downright wrong decisions.
I’m on my rant right now because we are currently being punished by a member of our local government because they don’t like our coverage of one or more issues, and we really need your support. We do our best to be fair, factual, and accurate. Always. We are careful and we do not sensationalize. If we’ve written a story, it’s because it needed to be told or it needed some transparency – the light needed to be shined in a dark place. And the only way we can keep doing that is with financial resources. But our access to the financial resources of this one, deep pocketed local government has been cut off. That doesn’t mean we’re going to go away, it just makes doing what we do a little more difficult, but mark my words, we’ll keep doing it.
Our community needs what all communities need – what research has shown that “strong local journalism builds social cohesion, encourages political participation, and improves the efficiency and decision-making of local and state government.” (Penny Muse Abernathy, Why Local News Matters, and What We Can Do to Save It.)
And as always, like you have for three years, keep buying the paper. Buy an ad from us if you can. Get a copy for a friend and get them to subscribe. And with your help, we’ll stay right here…
… keeping you Posted.
Rach
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